XP/Vista/7/Ubuntu - Little Help Please?

[HTCStuey]

I'm quite a nOOb to this but was doing well till last night. Note this is the first time I've ever installed OSs so although confident to do things and willing to try anything I am also very wary of my inexperience. Disregarding where I had to install Vista more than once etc I have simplified this:

-Did clean reinstall of XP Home from disks made from OS (came with Compaq Desktop)
-Installed Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 in XP including OS Selector
-Partitioned drive and set new partition to active
-Installed Vista Ultimate from bought package
-Installed Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 in Vista including OS Selector which activated the one already in XP

This dual boot XP/Vista worked brilliantly except for some problems with updates which now seem to have sorted themselves out. I wanted XP for normal stuff (games/internet/media) and am intending to use Vista for my course to keep work/play seperate.

However this then became my project PC and I have created a disk for Windows 7 RC from download and have a copy of Ubuntu from a magazine. I was quite happy with Ubuntu because I knew it would recognise the other OSs and let you dual boot automatically so:

-Set up partitions without activating (I thought I wouldn't be able to get back into Windows unless Ubuntu could see them and obviously Acronis OS Selector wouldn't install in Ubuntu and I didn't want to lose both Windows!)
-Installed on new ext3(/swap) partitions
-Went back into XP through GRUB and reactivated Acronis OS Selector
-Went back into Ubuntu then into GRUB settings and hid the OS list on boot and reduced the timeout to 3 seconds so that Acronis wasn't followed by a second option screen

This worked great and triple booted fine in the last week since I did it! The problem is when I tried to put Windows 7 on. I didn't activate the new partition because I wasn't sure how compatible Acronis OS Selector was with Windows 7 so thought I would let Windows 7 pick up the other Windows then go in and reactivate Acronis OS Selector later through XP like with Ubuntu. I realise this was a big mistake now...

-No Acronis OS Selector obviously so booted back into "Earlier version of Windows" which went straight into XP (no sign of Vista) instead of 7
-Reactivated Acronis OS Selector but doesn't recognise Windows 7, although XP/Vista/Ubuntu show up, only tried XP so assume the others work

Not a huge problem as it seems to be only Windows 7 lost which I'm not hugely passionate about as only wanted to play with it! Read a thread on here after installing last night and thought I might just need to put a link in the BOOTWIZ file, so went to bed and left it, no rush. However...

-On booting up today Acronis OS Selector comes up (XP/Vista/Ubuntu) but when I went into XP it gives me the option to boot into Windows 7/Earlier version (XP) where it's obviously overwriten the XP PBR (I think?).

I luckily also bought Acronis True Image 2009 (being so impressed with Disk Director and how easy someone with little experience like me could use it) so have an image of the whole drive on the old drive as a backup (which is why I was so reckless with Ubuntu/Windows 7 I guess!). However I have installed things in XP since the last backup as have been resinstalling all my games etc so would rather not have to sift through what I've recently installed if I don't have to and back up the files etc before replacing with the backup system!

I can get into the BOOTWIZ file on the backup. Can I just use that to replace the current XP one or is it not that simple???

Even if it's reasonably difficult I would rather do that and learn from this...

Any suggestions?

[MudCrab]

-{ Quote: "The problem is when I tried to put Windows 7 on. I didn't activate the new partition because I wasn't sure how compatible Acronis OS Selector was with Windows 7 so thought I would let Windows 7 pick up the other Windows then go in and reactivate Acronis OS Selector later through XP like with Ubuntu. I realise this was a big mistake now..." }-
The Windows 7 partition should have been Active and the other Windows partitions should have been hidden when you installed Windows 7.

Note that OSS will not detect Windows 7. Windows 7 must be manually added to the BOOTWIZ.OSS file after it's installed.

-{ Quote: "On booting up today Acronis OS Selector comes up (XP/Vista/Ubuntu) but when I went into XP it gives me the option to boot into Windows 7/Earlier version (XP) where it's obviously overwriten the XP PBR (I think?)." }-
The XP partition must have been Active when Windows 7 was installed. As a result, it took over the booting of that partition.

-{ Quote: "I luckily also bought Acronis True Image 2009 (being so impressed with Disk Director and how easy someone with little experience like me could use it) so have an image of the whole drive on the old drive as a backup (which is why I was so reckless with Ubuntu/Windows 7 I guess!). However I have installed things in XP since the last backup as have been resinstalling all my games etc so would rather not have to sift through what I've recently installed if I don't have to and back up the files etc before replacing with the backup system!" }-
Create a new backup image of the XP partition. You can then restore your previous disk image and then restore the updated XP partition image. Hopefully, you have already done restores successfully.

-{ Quote: "I can get into the BOOTWIZ file on the backup. Can I just use that to replace the current XP one or is it not that simple???" }-
It's not that simple. OSS has very little to do with this problem. If you just want to get XP back to booting like it was before, you can "reset" it by following the instructions in my separation guide (http://www.themudcrab.com/separatevistaxp.php). You just need to follow the instructions in Part 4. Make sure the XP partition is the Active partition before you boot to the XP CD. Hopefully, OSS will detect the updated boot sector and update its files. This is fairly easy to try first if you want to before doing the restores.

[HTCStuey]

I've managed to restore ntldr (?) instead of bootmgr last night on the XP partition as per: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=249262

XP now boots straight from the menu rather than going into the second windows 7 menu, although consequently 7 has been lost (I'm happy enough that reinstalling it is the price for having XP back with no loss of data!).

I sort of guessed it was a stupid idea to not make the blank partition active, I was just worried that I wouldn't be able to reinstall AOSS on 7. Can I just boot into AOSS to reactivate it from the CD the software came on? Although I admit having ADD10 on Vista and XP has been handy so awilling to try seeing as the license allows it on multiple OSs on the same machine. And seeing how little different Vista and 7 are shouldn't be any problems?

I'm not sure if your guide would have worked because the OS CD(s) I made from XP are strange Compaq ones which seem to wipe the drive and installs a recovery partition then install XP from that (with no choice as I found out before), I suppose someone with more experience would have been able to use something on the recovery partition but I deleted it once I had ATI2009... I will have to start actually using ATI2009 more often after all this!

Before I noticed the problem of XP loading via bootmgr I came across your thread to adding 7 to AOSS. I'm sure I will be visiting it in the near future!

PS Is there a way to add custom icons to AOSS?

[HTCStuey]

And BTW thanks!

[MudCrab]

-{ Quote: "XP now boots straight from the menu rather than going into the second windows 7 menu, although consequently 7 has been lost (I'm happy enough that reinstalling it is the price for having XP back with no loss of data!)." }-
Windows 7 isn't lost, it just can't boot because the files are not on its partition. You can move them (per the guide) or you can reinstall.

-{ Quote: "I sort of guessed it was a stupid idea to not make the blank partition active, I was just worried that I wouldn't be able to reinstall AOSS on 7. Can I just boot into AOSS to reactivate it from the CD the software came on?" }-
If you have included the OSS programs on your DD CD, you can boot to the CD and reactivate OSS (no need to even boot into an OS or install OSS in Windows if you don't want to). I always recommend that if you're using OSS you should have those programs on your DD CD.

-{ Quote: "Although I admit having ADD10 on Vista and XP has been handy so awilling to try seeing as the license allows it on multiple OSs on the same machine. And seeing how little different Vista and 7 are shouldn't be any problems?" }-
I haven't tried installing the OSS program into Windows 7. If you do, I'd recommend you make a backup image of the partition beforehand, just in case.

-{ Quote: "I'm not sure if your guide would have worked because the OS CD(s) I made from XP are strange Compaq ones..." }-
You would need a standard Microsoft OEM or retail CD.

-{ Quote: "PS Is there a way to add custom icons to AOSS?" }-
I don't remember anyone posting that they were able to do this successfully. The icons are included and directly referenced (as far as I know). I looked into it once briefly and didn't pursue it.

[dbk723]

I am needing some assistance doing something similar to this - I tried to set up my system to triple-boot to my existing installation of Windows XP, and add the options to boot to Ubuntu Jaunty and Windows 7 RC.

I tried this a while back and didn't have much luck - I have Windows XP installed on hard drive C:, which Disk Director says is Primary and active. I am storing data (mostly video captures and a drive image) on an identical hard drive designated as E: - I tried creating 2 partitions on the E: drive to install the other operating systems to, but after I rebooted and created the new partitions the Windows XP partition on the C: drive wouldn't boot.

I tried installing Windows 7 to the partition I created, but I must have got a bad install because it never worked properly. I would up removing the E: drive from my system entirely, booting to Windows XP on the C: drive, and deleting the new partitions on E: after plugging the bare drive into a SATA to USB adapter.

The C: partition seems to work all right, but the drive is starting to develop errors. It also seems to take longer to boot now for some reason. I'm considering copying the partition to a new drive to make sure it stays stable.

(I try to keep tabs on my hard drives with the taskbar "Hard Drive Inspector" program - I switched to a Samsung HD103UJ from a WD Caviar Black 1 TB drive a while back. The Samsung drive runs cooler and quieter than the Western Digital, but it only has a 72% "Performance" and "Reliability" rating, while the WD was straight 100%s)

Can someone link me to a tutorial on how to create the new partitions on my extra drive and set up a boot menu to choose between the three operating systems with Disk Director 10?